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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28719756">For Science!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyre_and_Gimble/pseuds/Gyre_and_Gimble'>Gyre_and_Gimble</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bedside Manners [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Vampyr (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood Drinking, M/M, Pre-Slash, Semi-Consensual Blood Drinking, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, questionable scientific methods</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:02:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,850</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28719756</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyre_and_Gimble/pseuds/Gyre_and_Gimble</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Jonathan Reid has never seen such flagrant disregard for proper scientific research methods.</p>
<p>He later decides that he doesn't care.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan Reid/Edgar Swansea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bedside Manners [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094597</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacrimalis/gifts">lacrimalis</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>In-game, your sclera don’t get red if the only people you kill are hostile enemies – but that never made much sense to me? So, I’ve changed it here.</p>
<p>Also: people in the 19th and 20th centuries loved using opium for stuff they probably shouldn’t have used opium for. </p>
<p>So… don’t use opium for stuff you shouldn’t, I guess.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Jonathan, my good fellow! Come in, come in – give me just a moment to put my equipment in order, here, and I’ll be right with you.”</p>
<p>Edgar finishes carefully sorting the samples Lady Ashbury was so kind as to donate earlier this evening, tucking them into the back of their cupboard. When he turns to display a ready smile, Edgar is not expecting the look of peaked fury he finds on Jonathan’s face.</p>
<p>“A-and how goes the investigation?” Edgar hazards. “Have you found what you’re looking for with this unfortunate…” Jonathan steps closer, and Edgar finds himself stumbling over his words. “… erm, blackmail… situation?”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s mouth twists. “That and more,” he growls, advancing upon Edgar, who only just manages to fight his instinct to back away.</p>
<p>“Not ten minutes ago,” Jonathan fumes, “I happened upon Lady Ashbury in the act of <em>feeding on</em> <em>a patient</em>.”</p>
<p>Edgar feels himself pale. “You what? Jonathan, tell me you’re joking.”</p>
<p>“I am afraid I’m entirely serious. But that isn’t the only reason I am in your office at thirty minutes to sunrise.”</p>
<p>Edgar looks out his window as if it tells him something meaningful about the time. He understands why Jonathan is upset; Edgar isn’t <em>entirely</em> comfortable with the arrangement, either – but if he can find a way to curb Lady Ashbury’s thirst for human blood through his experiments <em>and</em> discreetly acquire samples for his research…</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>Blood transfusion <em>is</em> his specialty, and if he can present a solution for the vampire’s thirst to the Brotherhood, his name will no doubt go down in history.</p>
<p>And how <em>marvelous</em> it would be to not only wed his two passions – scientific discovery and immortals – but to do so in the presence of the country’s preeminent blood transfusion specialist – who is now <em>himself</em> a vampire! Discovery is so much more exciting when someone is there to witness it alongside you, Edgar thinks.</p>
<p>It certainly doesn’t hurt that Edgar’s “witness” happens also to be dashingly handsome and deeply, morbidly alluring. Edgar doesn’t know what Jonathan looked like before his transformation, except from the small number of photographs that were printed alongside a few of his published works, but the transformation suits him well, Edgar thinks. Jonathan’s face defaults to a look of gentle sternness when it isn’t busy expressing something else, and his pallor only adds to the severity of his look. There is something about that severity, subverted by Dr. Reid’s gentleness and compassion, that captures Edgar’s attention in a less-than-professional capacity.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this very handsome, highly qualified vampire is looking at Edgar with naked fury, which Edgar finds simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.</p>
<p>“She is <em>killing</em> patients in your hospital, Edgar. You took an oath to do no harm, and yet you have invited a <em>fox</em> into your henhouse!”</p>
<p>“Jonathan, please,” Edgar protests. “To speak of a lady behind her back this way is –”</p>
<p>“Oh, rest assured, Edgar,” Jonathan snarls, “I have spoken to the <em>kind</em> Lady Ashbury, already.”</p>
<p>Edgar feels his hands grow cold at Jonathan’s predacious tone, under his bright, pitiless stare.</p>
<p>Since something seems to be stuck in his throat, Edgar splutters weakly, “Oh, I-I see. Well, erm, I suppose… I suppose that’s alright, then.”</p>
<p>Edgar is reasonably certain that Dr. Reid would not <em>actually</em> growl at him, if such vocalization was entirely under his control. Whatever it is, the sound emanating from Jonathan’s chest is difficult to ignore but stops the instant the man again begins to speak.</p>
<p>“She is <em>killing people</em>, Edgar,” Jonathan insists. “How can you let this happen in your hospital?”</p>
<p>“Jonathan, if I may be so bold,” Edgar gently interjects. “The look of your eyes tells me you have had a bit to drink tonight, yourself. I’m not certain it’s entirely fair for you to judge the lady so harshly if you share similar… feeding practices.”</p>
<p>This gives Jonathan pause. He moves to the looking glass mounted on the wall, touching the skin around his eyes.</p>
<p>“Feeding directly from a healthy human,” Edgar explains, “causes the sclera to redden. They will remain so for as long as you continue to sustain yourself this way.” Edgar likes it when he can fall back on science – a very welcome reprieve from the furious heat of Jonathan’s glare and the dark timbre of his voice.</p>
<p>Jonathan bristles. “Those hunters attacked <em>me</em>,” he snaps. “I was merely defending myself.”</p>
<p>Edgar feels the frisson of new data and immediately reaches for his notebook. “You mean you were feeding from them during combat?” He scribbles down the date and time and begins to write in shorthand. “I’m surprised that your eyes bear this much evidence – normally intermittent feeding like that doesn’t change the appearance much at all, but in your case it’s really quite striking.”</p>
<p>Jonathan turns from the mirror, and Edgar finds that he looks like an altogether different man compared to the steely-eyed Ekon that strode through his door only minutes ago. Jonathan’s eyes are wide, moonbeam irises adrift in a sea of red, all their fury doused.</p>
<p>“How shall I hide this?” Jonathan laments faintly. “Edgar, there is only so much a man can take; how can I face my patients?”</p>
<p>Edgar sees the tremor in Jonathan’s hands, the sudden heave of his chest despite that his lungs no longer need air. In a human, the autonomic nervous system compels a rate of breath consistent with the body’s level of physical stress.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s autonomic nervous system is no longer capable of communicating his body’s respiratory needs, because Jonathan no longer <em>needs</em> to breathe.</p>
<p>Which means Jonathan is having an anxiety episode.</p>
<p>Edgar springs into action. “Steady on, Jonathan, steady on,” he soothes, gripping Jonathan by his elbows and guiding him towards the large desk. “Come over here with me, a moment. There we are.”</p>
<p>When Jonathan is seated on the edge of the desk, Edgar takes hold of his wrist. A vampire’s pulse is much slower than that of the average human, and much harder to find – but Jonathan’s heart is thundering away at ninety beats per minute.</p>
<p>“Jonathan,” Edgar says, steady and firm, “you’re in a state of shock. You’ll be alright, just hold on.”</p>
<p>Edgar reaches into the low cabinet by his desk, withdrawing a bottle labeled <em>Distilled Tincture of Opium</em>. Jonathan continues to hyperventilate, his eyes miles and miles away as they gaze blindly at the floor. Edgar withdraws a tablet from the bottle and incites Jonathan to put it under his tongue.</p>
<p>The human mind is so powerful, and yet so fragile a thing. One can only endure so much horror, death and sorrow before the mind no longer knows what to do with it all.</p>
<p>To fight and kill are not, as some suggest, natural facets of the human condition. We are a cooperative species, a social sort of animal that is strongest when working together. It is only through <em>collaboration</em> that we have accomplished our most daring feats and made our greatest discoveries – not through conflict, not through violence, and certainly not through <em>war</em>.</p>
<p>To demand that a social creature slay its own kind is, to Edgar’s mind, deeply, frightfully cruel.</p>
<p>To forsake our natural proclivity for cooperation in favor of the barbarism and anguish of war is, to Edgar’s mind, a truly heinous crime. To be made not only to fight and kill, but to then tend to your wounded knowing that there are wounded men just like yours behind the enemy line, is a form of torture so odious it makes Edgar feel ill just to think of it.</p>
<p>To be put through the horror of war, only to be thrust unceremoniously into immortal life would, Edgar thinks, be rather a lot for any man to bear.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s breathing and pulse slow down, and in a few long moments a different sort of glaze comes over his eyes, breathtaking and terrifying as they are.</p>
<p>Edgar grasps Jonathan’s forearms and searches his face. “And how are we feeling now, Jonathan?”</p>
<p>Jonathan blinks slowly. “Did you just give me laudanum?” he asks in a daze.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~*~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jonathan is horrified with himself for taking anything this man gave him. Edgar conspired with Lady Ashbury for some time – who <em>knew</em> how long – to sacrifice patients to her bloodthirst; it could have been <em>poison</em> he’d given Jonathan, cyanide or arsenic, and he would never have known.</p>
<p>Even as he thinks it, Jonathan knows it’s a lie. He’d know laudanum’s bitter kiss anywhere.</p>
<p>On the journey back to England, the nightmares grew so terrible and so frequent that his comrades, while sympathetic, had threatened to have him moved from the general sleeping quarters to the supply car. The compromise had been to let him remain with the others as long as he took a nightly dose of the bitter sedative.</p>
<p>It didn’t stop the nightmares. It just made it so that he couldn’t wake up or shout in his sleep.</p>
<p>A wave of dread washes over him as those long, frightful nights come back to him with force, each memory heralded by that <em>bitterness</em> sticking in his throat.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s voice trembles when he speaks. “Forgive me, Edgar,” he says. “I haven’t had… I don’t usually…”</p>
<p>Jonathan realizes that he is in serious danger of sounding like Lady Ashbury, making excuses, and so he ceases talking.</p>
<p>Edgar’s words are gentle. “No need to apologize, Jonathan. You know better than anyone, I should think, just how deeply shellshock can affect a person’s emotional appetites. You’ve been through rather a lot in the past few days. It’s only natural that you should feel somewhat overwhelmed.”</p>
<p>Jonathan wants to snap at him, say he’s only overwhelmed by the recklessness Edgar has been displaying by letting Lady Ashbury prowl his halls…</p>
<p>But he doesn’t. Edgar does not share Lady Ashbury’s culpability, at least not to the fullest extent. If anything, based on what Jonathan so far knows of Dr. Swansea, he’s more liable to be <em>bullied</em> into such an arrangement than to seek it out. If Ashbury has positioned herself as the Pembroke’s primary donor, the ethical bankruptcy of the situation is just as likely to be pinning Swansea down as profiting him.</p>
<p>Jonathan supposes he can give the man the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>He permits Edgar to help him to his room – “Only a precaution, Jonathan, you understand,” – without protest. He remains angry, and fully intends to press Edgar for answers the following night… but it is difficult to shake the feeling that they are sharing something intimate. Jonathan is vulnerable, weakened by the excitement of his temper and the drag of laudanum, but Edgar treats him neither like a muzzled predator nor a wasting invalid. He is every bit as compassionate and careful as Nurse Crane suggested, helping Jonathan out of his waistcoat and boots and into bed.</p>
<p>“Sleep well, Jonathan,” Edgar says with a hand on his shoulder. “I promise you, tonight, we may talk for as long as you wish.”</p>
<p>Jonathan is asleep before he can formulate a reply, falling into a darkness he hopes is not full of nightmares.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~*~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Their visits take place a few nights out of every week, and true to his word Edgar answers Jonathan’s questions for as long as either of them can spare, between their respective duties.</p>
<p>It had just grown into what could be called a “habit” when Jonathan was suddenly given reason to regret it.</p>
<p>“Must I kill in order to keep myself alive?”</p>
<p>It’s a matter of more than passing interest to Jonathan, whose sclera seem only to have deepened their red color. It is futility itself to worry over them, but Jonathan finds he can’t help staring at his own eyes in Edgar’s looking glass.</p>
<p>“You are a vampire,” Edgar says. “You must feed, and blood is the sole sustenance that can sustain you – and only a living creature contains the nourishment you require.”</p>
<p>Killing the Priwen agents that accost him in the street hardly feels to Jonathan like a violation of his Hippocratic oath, but he nevertheless bears the mark of their deaths in the red of his eyes.</p>
<p>How many of them has he killed, now? Twenty? Thirty?</p>
<p>Jonathan wrenches his attention from the looking glass. “What about other sources of blood?” He hesitates only a moment before admitting, “When I first awoke, after I found Mary, I was so hungry that I…”</p>
<p>Why does Jonathan’s stomach churn, trying to tell Edgar this? He has nothing to be ashamed of, he thinks; he’d been newly reborn, with only his instincts to guide him.</p>
<p>“I drank from rats,” he manages, ashamed despite himself.</p>
<p>To Jonathan’s relief, Edgar does not exhibit unqualified disgust when Jonathan says this. He appears curious, with a look of academic consternation as he asks, “And did that satisfy your thirst?”</p>
<p>Jonathan ponders before nodding. “It did, I think. At least for a time.”</p>
<p>Edgar scribbles something in his notebook. Jonathan smells the ink, the paper, can hear the ridges of Edgar’s fingers catching on the edge of a page as he turns it; the thump of his heart, beating even and calm in his chest, the hush of blood through his veins.</p>
<p>He needs to feed, and soon.</p>
<p>“I must admit, Jonathan: terrible though your experiences have been, they are teaching me a great deal about you. Your kind, I mean,” Edgar amends, and Jonathan hears a jump in his pulse. He might have ignored the slip altogether, were it not for the flush of color creeping into Edgar’s cheeks.</p>
<p><em>Fascinating</em>.</p>
<p>Jonathan considers an empty letter tray atop one of the low bookshelves. “Since you’ve been so kind as to answer my questions,” he says, “I see no reason <em>not</em> to share my insight with you, limited though it may be. I am always glad to assist in the furtherance of scientific enquiry.”</p>
<p>To this, Edgar’s heart beats just a touch more quickly, and Jonathan can <em>smell</em> his excitement and delight. It’s faint and sweet, like warmed honey somewhere just out of sight.</p>
<p>He decides it might be best to keep that particular level of observation to himself.</p>
<p>“Excellent,” Edgar declares. “In that case, might I perform an examination?”</p>
<p>Jonathan cocks a brow. “A physical exam?” he clarifies.</p>
<p>Edgar adjusts his glasses and busies himself with his pen. “Well, yes – unless of course you aren’t comfortable with that. Perfectly fine, Jonathan; we shall go at your pace.”</p>
<p>Jonathan narrows his eyes while Edgar looks over his notes. There is something beneath his colleague’s honeyed excitement, but Jonathan can’t quite decide what this deeper smell is telling him. It’s thick and rich, almost like sweet cream, but whatever meaning his heightened senses are meant to glean from this remains mysterious to Jonathan.</p>
<p>It doesn’t fill him with a sense of unease or remind him of anything unpleasant, so he supposes there’s no harm.</p>
<p>It is only minutes later, when he is divested of his shirt and Edgar is listening to his chest, that Jonathan thinks he really should have had breakfast before agreeing to this.</p>
<p>He knows he shouldn’t, knows that this is dangerous, but he really can’t help himself: he narrows his senses, focuses them so that he can see Edgar’s heart, each vein and artery arrayed in their orderly tangle. The jugular and carotid are nestled together on either side of his neck, the carotid linked to a healthy, throbbing aorta that pulses in time with Edgar’s quickening heartbeat.</p>
<p>The rest of Edgar’s form is dark, muted and consigned to the edges of Jonathan’s awareness. The smooth length of something Jonathan absently recognizes as a tape measure wraps around his torso, his waist, until Edgar is kneeling on the ground to measure his legs. In a right state of mind, Jonathan might have wondered what need Swansea could have for his measurements.</p>
<p>Not at <em>all</em> in a right state of mind, Jonathan can only salivate obscenely as the cloying, intoxicating smell of Edgar’s curiosity and whatever lurks beneath it fill his head and crowd out his thoughts.</p>
<p>He feels himself swaying and is steadied by a gentle touch from the mass of throbbing lifeblood before him. There are noises that Jonathan thinks sound a little like speech, but they are too distant and too garbled for him to decipher. The red web is closer to him now, and closer still when he falls backward, caught on the edge of something hard and solid. Jonathan’s hands may be moving, but he can’t be sure. The heart at the center of the web is beating fast, and all at once Jonathan feels a familiar prickle in the back of his mind – a voice that says only one word:</p>
<p><em>Prey</em>.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s mouth falls open, and the red tendrils are closer, so close now. All he has to do is –</p>
<p>The acrid blast of smelling salts beneath his nose sends Jonathan reeling, spluttering and squinting as his vision returns to normal.</p>
<p>Edgar stands before him, a small vial in his hand and a look of flushed excitement on his face. He’s short of breath and his coat and shirt are rumpled in a way Jonathan has never seen them before.</p>
<p>Jonathan realizes with mounting horror what almost just happened.</p>
<p>“Edgar,” he croaks, “I’m so, so sorry, I just… God in heaven, I could have…” <em>I could have killed you.</em></p>
<p>To Jonathan’s utter and intense confusion, Edgar <em>laughs</em>.</p>
<p>“Quite alright, Jonathan,” he says, with a glint in his eye that Jonathan doesn’t understand. “No harm done. In fact, you’ve just taught me something rather valuable.”</p>
<p>Jonathan knows that he doesn’t need to breathe, anymore, but that doesn’t stop his lungs from insisting upon deep, heaving breaths. His chest is still bare in the warm, dry air of Edgar’s office, and he only realizes he is gripping the bookcase behind him when he hears the wood creak beneath his fingers.</p>
<p>It is difficult to speak with his fangs itching and that <em>smell</em> so close. It really does remind Jonathan of the desserts he and Mary enjoyed as children: custard and berries, honeyed fruit and sweet, delicate merengues. He has never known any of his unfortunate victims to possess such a distinctive and, frankly, enticing scent.</p>
<p>Jonathan cannot help that he wonders how Edgar’s blood would taste, with those sweet, heady smells priming his palate.</p>
<p>“… readily available as ammonia salts,” Edgar is saying, “can interrupt a vampire when they enter a frenzy. How fascinating!”</p>
<p>Jonathan manages to get his psychosomatic breathing under control, frowning at Edgar and demanding, “Did you… did you know that would happen?”</p>
<p>Edgar spares him a glance and, for some reason, a mischievous smile. “I had my suspicions; you are looking rather paler than usual and I know you haven’t been feeding as regularly as has been your habit since we discussed your altered appearance the other day.”</p>
<p>Were it not for his compromised state and the distinct feeling that, given the smallest chance, he would lunge at and begin to feed upon Edgar, Jonathan would have more to say about this. As it stands, it’s all Jonathan can do to keep from seeing Edgar as an easy meal following the aperitif of dissatisfied predation.</p>
<p>“I wonder, Jonathan, if you might be willing to help test another theory of mine.”</p>
<p>The darkness around Jonathan’s vision is receding, but slowly. He curses himself for not planning more thoroughly before this encounter. “I’m rather inclined not to, if I may be blunt. You’ve exhibited behavior so reckless and judgment so poor that…”</p>
<p>The movement is quick, decisive and clean, and Jonathan almost misses it. He can’t miss the smell, though: milk and honey, warm and sweet and rich, teasing his fangs and bowling over whatever remains of his good sense as great, fat droplets of blood rise to the broken surface of Edgar’s skin.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s superfluous breath comes to an abrupt halt, and his vision begins once again to narrow, until the well of blood is all he can see, all he can hear – the slow, languid throb of venous bleeding.</p>
<p>“Steady, Jonathan,” Edgar says, brandishing his vial of smelling salts and tainting the air with its acrid stink. Jonathan’s nose wrinkles and his teeth snap together as he shakes his head, unhappy to supplant the smell of honeyed milk with that of boiling vinegar.</p>
<p>Blinking away the sting, Jonathan manages to throw Edgar what feels like a truly venomous glare. This does nothing to dampen Edgar’s enthusiasm; the glimmer in his eye, the steadiness of his hands and the relaxed tilt of his shoulders all tell of a man at home and in his element. He seems, against all reason, perfectly at ease. In fact, Jonathan can hardly recall another time when he’s seen Edgar looking so self-possessed and confident. Confidence suits Edgar, Jonathan decides, and it is not long after this that he realizes he is regarding his colleague not simply with a vampire’s thirst.</p>
<p>“Now,” Edgar says calmly, slowly, “I know what you’re thinking.”</p>
<p>Now that he’s looking, Jonathan can’t stop: his carefully-ordered hair, bright, dark eyes and a pleasantly pink mouth, with a tongue inside of it that Jonathan suddenly cannot stop wondering about.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s voice is hoarse and deep. “I highly doubt that.”</p>
<p>Edgar’s smile is easy, and his laugh is warm. “Well, perhaps you’re right,” he concedes. “But regardless: this is the perfect opportunity for us to lay to rest a matter of some contention between myself and other members of the Brotherhood.”</p>
<p>“So, I’ve become your test subject, after all?”</p>
<p>Edgar gives him a friendly frown. “Jonathan, you know that isn’t how I see you. You are a cherished colleague and a dear friend.” His confidence momentarily flags, and Jonathan learns what Edgar’s insecurity smells like: it’s clean, like spearmint or lemon, and faint enough that it’s nearly lost in the miasma of good and bad odors now adrift in the office air.</p>
<p>“At least,” Edgar says, radiating self-doubt, “I <em>hope</em> you know that is how I see you, Jonathan. I have been such a great admirer of your work for so long, and I believe that we have so very much to teach each other.”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s head is swimming and his thirst is quickly becoming difficult to control. He isn’t sure how much longer Edgar’s ammonia salts will help him, if he continues to tempt him this way. The swiftest solution is to find out what Edgar wants and give it to him; Jonathan is certain that, by this time of night, there are at least a handful of stout Priwen men wandering the streets he can sacrifice to his thirst. The matter of his eyes can be sorted out later. His immediate priority is <em>not</em> killing his hospital’s administrator.</p>
<p>“You said something about the Brotherhood,” Jonathan grumbles, trying and failing to keep his eyes away from Edgar’s lazily bleeding wrist.</p>
<p>Edgar nods, his smile returning, and with it the scent of honeyed enthusiasm. “Yes! Well, I’ve been thinking, Jonathan: what if you could feed without killing your human subject? There is some evidence that this might evince a means of managing your appearance.”</p>
<p>Jonathan tries to focus through the intensifying haze of Edgar’s enthusiasm and the smell of his blood. “So you’re…” His throat contracts, but rather than making speech easier it instead feels to Jonathan as if he’s tried to swallow sand.</p>
<p>“What I suggest,” Edgar gleefully continues, “is a test of your ability to control your thirst when feeding upon a willing human.”</p>
<p>Jonathan feels his face twist into something like a sneer in his frustration, but it falls into a grimace as he watches a glob of Edgar’s vital blood fall to the floor. The injustice, the cruelty of it… By now, he is ready to grant Edgar just about anything for a taste.</p>
<p>He <em>should</em> object. He should deny Edgar’s request outright and storm out, flee to the streets and do what he must to sustain himself. Morals be damned, he’d take just about anyone, now. It isn’t until he begins seriously considering simply mesmerizing and draining one of his patients in a filthy alcove by the waterfront that Jonathan realizes just how dire a situation he’s in.</p>
<p>“It’s alright, Jonathan.”</p>
<p>Edgar caps his vial of smelling salts, and almost instantly Jonathan feels himself physically relax. The relief is short-lived, as now there is nothing to qualify his hungry appreciation of the many scents of <em>Edgar</em>.</p>
<p>“You’re…” Jonathan tries to swallow again but can’t quite manage it. “You’re dripping.”</p>
<p>Edgar blinks at his wrist. “Ah, so I am,” he observes. “Well, no matter. The carpets are due to be cleaned, anyway.”</p>
<p>Jonathan is at war with every fiber of his being, every fragment of whatever he has in place of a soul that is screeching for sustenance, pushing him to grip and bite and tear.</p>
<p>“Edgar, please, I don’t know if I can control myself.”</p>
<p>And still, for all his expertise, Edgar persists in his ill-conceived experiment. Jonathan cannot help but pity him as he narrows the space between them with slow, measured strides.</p>
<p>“It’ll be alright,” Edgar says again. “I’m not afraid, you see? Not in the slightest. I know you would never hurt me, Jonathan, not if you can help it.”</p>
<p>The ache is in all his teeth, now, and his fangs feel <em>swollen</em> such that keeping his mouth closed is a trial. With the last of his strength Jonathan pushes himself back until he is sitting atop the low bookcase behind him, pressing his shoulders back into the wall. He needs all the space he can get between himself and the deep temptation of Edgar’s body and blood.</p>
<p>“Your self-governance is nothing short of remarkable. The control, the <em>restraint </em>you’ve shown…”</p>
<p>Jonathan is sure by now he looks a sight: shoulders bowed, hands white-knuckled on the bookshelf’s edge, eyes flooded red and mouth agape to accommodate the teeth that burn with the need to bury themselves in Edgar’s neck.</p>
<p>“There are a number of sources that suggest a symbiotic relationship between a vampire and a willing human is not only possible, but entirely sustainable. It does require more frequent feeding on the part of the vampire, but rest assured, Jonathan, I am devoted to seeing this experiment through.”</p>
<p><em>Imbecile</em>, Jonathan curses, and it’s very nearly the last rational thought he has. Edgar is close now, close enough to touch. Close enough to <em>taste</em>.</p>
<p>“Take your time,” Edgar says, “and stop yourself if you can. If you can’t, then I shall make use of the ammonia salts.” He seeks Jonathan’s eye, and when Jonathan yields to his search he is nearly overcome by the earnestness he finds in Edgar’s face.</p>
<p>“Do you know why I offered you this job, just hours after meeting you?”</p>
<p>Jonathan is past the point of producing human speech, so he shakes his head.</p>
<p>“It was because I sensed in you a <em>goodness</em>, an honesty that told me I could trust you.’”</p>
<p>Edgar’s hand – the one <em>not </em>attached to a bleeding wrist – rises slowly and lands on Jonathan’s shoulder. “And I do, dear fellow.”</p>
<p>Jonathan chases the movement with his nose, jaw aching with the effort of holding back his bite as the promise of milk and honey pulses beneath just a few layers of fragile skin.</p>
<p>“I do trust you,” Edgar says again, softly now, as he raises the wrist that is weeping sweet, precious drops of blood. “So, my friend: drink.”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s fingers are stiff as he pries them away from the edge of the bookcase, and his hands tremble slightly as they reach for Edgar’s arm. His skin is warm, with a thin dusting of dark hair on his forearm that is a thrill to Jonathan’s senses as his fingers brush across it. It takes every ounce of willpower he has, but he keeps his movements slow, as gentle as he can manage, and Jonathan is struck suddenly with the realization that this will be unlike any feeding he’s ever done before.</p>
<p>He manages to tear his eyes away from the narrow gash on Edgar’s wrist to search his face for any signs of hesitation or fear. Instead, he finds Edgar’s lips slightly parted, his eyes half-lidded and smoldering, and all at once Jonathan’s senses are flooded with the creamy, heady scent of what he is no longer entirely convinced is simple, academic enthusiasm.</p>
<p>Slowly, carefully, and with a restraint he didn’t know he had, Jonathan tongues over the wound, cleaning what is spilt before moving to suck at the source. With no further preamble, Jonathan sinks his fangs into the cut.</p>
<p>And suddenly, he understands. He understands perfectly and can’t imagine why on earth he ever doubted his dear, brilliant colleague’s judgment.</p>
<p>It is glorious, sensational bliss.</p>
<p>Edgar is every bit as sweet as Jonathan imagined. His blood is thick and decadent, its bitter tang offset by the flavors of sugar and honey and rich cream that flood his mouth and nose.</p>
<p>Jonathan slows his drinking when he realizes that he’s fallen back on the habits he’s developed from feeding on men who are trying to kill him. This is no frenzied, frantic predation; there is no shouting, no fire or holy symbols burning him, no cold London rain pelting his back and dampening his hair. This is something altogether different.</p>
<p>He feels… warm. Calm. Peaceful in the same way a fire crackling in a hearth is. The adrenaline of first contact has receded, and left in its place a sense of security. He even hears Edgar when he speaks.</p>
<p>“You’re doing well, Jonathan, but we must stop soon.” he says. If Jonathan was more in charge of his faculties, he might have noticed that his colleague is a touch out of breath.</p>
<p>As it is, Jonathan fails to notice the high flush in Edgar’s face and the way he is furtively adjusting his trousers. Jonathan is filled with dismay at a decadence so soon withdrawn, but to his astonishment he has very little trouble removing his mouth from Edgar’s wrist. He does carefully lap up what little blood persists in seeping from the shallow wound, but his fingers relax, Edgar is released, and Jonathan is…</p>
<p>Full.</p>
<p>He feels <em>full</em>, satiated in a way he hasn’t since he awoke. The bloodthirst is always there, the terrible, gnawing hunger – but now it feels so far away. It will return, he’s certain, but as he leans back and lets his head fall against the wall Jonathan can hardly muster the will to treat it as anything more than a passing concern.</p>
<p>“That was reckless,” he says, as sternly as he can – which is not very stern at all. His voice is deep and clear, his throat at last rid of the dreadful dryness of overlooked feeding.</p>
<p>Edgar retrieves a clean cloth from the pocket of his coat and presses it to the cut on his wrist, watching avidly as Jonathan chases the last of his blood on his lips. “The things we do for science,” Edgar says on a sigh, offering Jonathan a smile that tells him he was not the only one who enjoyed this exchange.</p>
<p>“I really was worried, Edgar,” Jonathan says, the glow of his satisfied hunger softening his words. He knows he was angry before, and he felt that he had a right to be – but it seems like such a bother, such an unproductive use of the time he has with the dear creature capable of making him feel this way.</p>
<p>“My apologies,” Edgar says, quiet and close. “It certainly wasn’t my intention to upset you, my dear boy.”</p>
<p><em>Well, you did,</em> is what the Jonathan from five minutes ago would have snapped.</p>
<p>Instead, and somewhat to his surprise, he says, “We shall need to monitor your condition. It wouldn’t do for the Pembroke’s administrator to come down with anemia.”</p>
<p>Edgar laughs, applying a bandage to his wrist. “All for the greater good, Jonathan,” he says, a playful light in his eye. “All for the greater good.”</p>
<p>Jonathan does not hunt that night, or the night after. He doesn’t stop himself from doing it when need and opportunity converge in the dark of London’s streets, but over the course of the next several weeks he finds that Edgar’s hypothesis had been correct: his eyes return to normal.</p>
<p>Not altogether a bad outcome, Jonathan muses, as he once again delights in the tastes of milk and honey.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Bound to the Earth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Remorse and pain are precious when binding you to the earth – Myrrdin</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jonathan rides the shadows up to the balcony leading to his room at the hospital. He’s just returned from Mary’s funeral, and isn’t keen on dealing with whatever tiresome questions, greetings, or expressions of sympathy his colleagues and patients might try to impart. He just wants to talk to Edgar, have a drink, and perhaps get a sympathetic ear. He doesn’t go looking for them often, as he finds it bothersome to provide one, himself, but even a man newly undead is subject to the mind’s primal imperative to seek comfort in others of his species.</p>
<p>Edgar gives what comfort he can. The man is compassionate to a fault, but Jonathan finds that sometimes he likes the good Dr. Swansea best when he is unable to verbalize his expressions of support and instead shows it in other ways.</p>
<p>Tonight, that means Jonathan drinking deeply, if briefly, of Edgar’s honey-sweet blood, mainly as a way of washing down the soured-wine taste of the poor, rabid Skals from whom he drank as he fought his way through the cemetery. It’s a miracle his dear mother and poor Avery weren’t killed on their way in or out.</p>
<p>Jonathan always <em>has</em> liked making miracles.</p>
<p>If only this one didn’t taste so <em>foul</em>.</p>
<p>Not but a minute after sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of Edgar’s shoulder Jonathan withdraws, carefully cleaning the area first with his tongue and then with a mild disinfectant. Edgar turns his head, ostensibly to watch Jonathan work, but his eyes are glassy and hooded, and Jonathan can smell what he has come to understand is the scent of Edgar wanting something.</p>
<p>The depth of his olfactory sense has only grown since his rebirth, and time has afforded him the opportunity to decipher and put a name to some of the novel multitude of smells he can now perceive. Some are familiar – gunpowder, blood and burning wood, the pervasive stink of backwater streets. Others, less so: the first few times Jonathan fed upon Edgar (at the latter’s enthusiastic insistence), he could only piece together what tasted and smelled like milk and honey – rich, saccharine and enticing, alluring not only in that such things are pleasurable to sense but also in their primal decadence.</p>
<p>Primitive man found his sustenance where he could, and there were evolutionary advantages for those who could find and partake in foods high in fats and sugar; it is only natural that the millennia of intervening time would privilege those humans with a taste for them.</p>
<p>This offers Jonathan a ready explanation for the contentment that accompanies his feeding upon Edgar. Since, to Jonathan’s knowledge, Edgar does not share his heightened olfactory sense, there are fewer reasons available to explain <em>his</em> desire for contented intimacy following Jonathan’s feedings.</p>
<p>Jonathan is sitting in Edgar’s chair, behind his desk, with Edgar perched in his lap. It is an arrangement proposed and endorsed by Jonathan’s colleague, on the grounds that it is more ergonomic for the both of them</p>
<p>It is no inconvenience to allow his willing human to lean back against his chest while Jonathan himself basks in the sweet glow of nonviolent feeding. Edgar alone cannot satisfy a young Ekon’s appetite; Jonathan must still occasionally tear open a throat or two, but by far this is his favorite meal: warm, willing, and silent.</p>
<p>Well, as silent as Dr. Edgar Swansea ever can be.</p>
<p>“I say, Jonathan,” he slurs dreamily, “I think you might have taken a little much just now.”</p>
<p>Jonathan chuckles, and tries to swallow down the heartache that blooms anew as he realizes it sounds just like his father’s.</p>
<p>“I’m certain it would be impossible for me to defend myself, if someone were to try to take advantage,” Edgar persists, lying back until his face is buried in Jonathan’s neck.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s nostrils flare as he is once again overcome by the phantom smell of Edgar’s want, warm and sweet and rich, on his skin and in the air.</p>
<p>Blood-drunk and exhausted, Jonathan finds himself in a permissive mood. He trails his fingers over the unblemished skin on one side of Edgar’s neck, noting with satisfaction the way his breath catches and his heartbeat hastens on.</p>
<p>“Lucky for you, then,” Jonathan says, a rumble in his chest, “that the vampire with whom you’ve put yourself in such a compromised position is a gentleman.”</p>
<p>Edgar laughs sleepily, lays a lazy hand on Jonathan’s chest. “A gentleman and a scholar,” he mumbles.</p>
<p>Jonathan positions Edgar’s limbs such that he is able to lift and carry him to the cot kept in the study for occasions such as these. Edgar – poor, tired thing that he is – readily wraps his arms around Jonathan’s neck and, to Jonathan’s surprise, <em>nuzzles </em>into the space between his neck and shoulder.</p>
<p>“And <em>what</em> a scholar,” Edgar presses, eyes already slipping shut. “We really must find time to talk about your 1911 dissertation, th’one you did for the Royal… the Royal Haemotolo-jackal Society.”</p>
<p>Jonathan surprises himself by laughing. “I believe you mean the Royal Haematological Society,” he gently corrects, laying Edgar down carefully.</p>
<p>“Tha’s the one,” Edgar mumbles. “Good show, Jonathan. A gentleman and a…”</p>
<p>He is snoring in seconds, and Jonathan admits to himself that Edgar really is a bit of a darling as he falls swiftly into sleep. He kneels there, gazing at Edgar’s peaceful form until his smile is eventually tugged away by the memory of what’s come to pass, tonight.</p>
<p>Jonathan locks the door to the office behind him, and as he marches grimly to bed he tries to hold on to the memories of sweetness and warmth.</p>
<p>He has a feeling he will soon be sorely in need of both.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~*~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jonathan likes Geoffrey McCullum, and this perplexes him until he realizes it’s because of the way he smells.</p>
<p>When Jonathan first enters Edgar’s office, all he can detect are the darkly mingled scents of gunpowder and tobacco smoke, but as the man gesticulates and reprimands Edgar for, as he says, “setting his table for a snake,” Jonathan is able to pick out the hint of something else – something sour and sweet, a pungent undercurrent not unlike those he’s learned to detect in Edgar.</p>
<p>By his manner and his clothes, Jonathan is unsurprised to learn that McCullum leads the Guard of Priwen.</p>
<p>“Leave him, Jonathan,” Edgar calls, almost carelessly, when McCullum meets him at the door.</p>
<p>Jonathan likes this, for two reasons.</p>
<p>The first is that Edgar scents pleasantly of confidence, and that is a smell which, for reasons unclear, deliciously whets Jonathan’s appetite. The idea that this man, this silly, fragile mortal believes that he has a powerful Ekon at his beck and call is an irony Jonathan finds deeply amusing.</p>
<p>The second is that, whether McCullum knows it or not, Edgar calling out to Jonathan like a well-heeled guard dog makes McCullum deeply uneasy. His eyes are all cold fury and unvoiced threats, but beneath it all are emergent, indisputable notes of fear. It’s not a scent Jonathan has to endure much, these days; the few Priwen men he is forced to slay usually reek of adrenaline rather than outright fear, and <em>that</em> is an odor so noisome it’s easy to ignore whatever lies beneath it.</p>
<p>McCullum’s fear puts Jonathan in mind of sour cherries and bitter lemon, and he wonders if this man has any idea how unfortunate it is that his fear smells so very <em>good</em>.</p>
<p>When McCullum leaves, Jonathan closes the door behind him, and is immediately hit with a wave of the bitter mint of Edgar’s own anxiety. He turns to find Edgar raking his hands through his hair.</p>
<p>“It’s Sean Hampton,” he explains, “the man we thought we saved at the docks.”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s stomach drops precipitously, and the beast inside him howls. Edgar’s news chills him like ocean water, hurts like the sound of shattered glass: Sean has killed a patient and fled.</p>
<p>There never have been many points of light in the nighttime sky of Jonathan’s mind. The curious stranger with a gentle voice and gentler words, the one who didn’t yet know how close a friend he could find in Jonathan – gone, flickered out like every other dead star.</p>
<p>“And now the Guard of Priwen suspects the hospital of vampire activity! Have you any idea what that could mean for us?”</p>
<p>Jonathan, regaining himself somewhat, shrugs. “Well, they’re not far wrong,” he remarks dryly. “The hospital is practically crawling with them.”</p>
<p>Lady Ashbury has been making herself scarce these past few days, and that sits perfectly well with Jonathan. Poor Thelma Howcroft could perhaps be relied upon to distract the Guard for a short time, but Jonathan needs to move quickly.</p>
<p>“McCullum is a fanatic,” Edgar laments. “The Guard will stop at nothing; you don’t know what they’re capable of.”</p>
<p>The piercing shout of the gunner as he fell to the ground, drenched in his own blood; the dying gurgle of a chaplain forsaken by his God; the terrified whimpers and thudding footsteps of the rookies Jonathan let get away…</p>
<p>“I think I have some idea,” he says. “How did the Guard of Priwen come to hear of this, in the first place?”</p>
<p>“McCullum has spies everywhere,” Edgar says miserably. “He will jump at any opportunity to disparage the Brotherhood and show his contempt, both for our order and, I’m afraid, for me.”</p>
<p>When he feels well-enough appraised of the situation Jonathan makes to leave, but something stops him short halfway to the door.</p>
<p>Compelled – though by what, he does not know – to look back, Jonathan sees Edgar as he sits at his desk: hands in his hair, shoulders tense, staring at the impassive wood beneath his elbows. He radiates insecurity, a desire to be comforted – but he says nothing.</p>
<p>Edgar is not generally in the habit of trying to hide his desires from Jonathan, and Jonathan hazards a guess that, if he tried, he would not be very good at it.</p>
<p>So why is he not simply <em>asking</em> Jonathan for what he wants?</p>
<p>There is an impatient growl from the part of him that thirsts for the blood of whatever has taken Sean Hampton from him. Instead of following its directive to leave, Jonathan secures the door’s heavy lock and returns to Edgar’s desk.</p>
<p>Edgar looks up. “Jonathan? What are you – you must hurry, if you wish to catch him before Priwen do.”</p>
<p>Jonathan rounds the desk slowly, reaching out for Edgar when he’s within arm’s reach.</p>
<p>“Come to me,” he says, deep and gentle.</p>
<p>Edgar blinks owlishly behind his glasses. “I beg your pardon?”</p>
<p>The beast in Jonathan snarls, in clear defiance of his attempts at being kind with Edgar.</p>
<p>Deeply, softly, but with a predatory edge does Jonathan’s voice resonate in the air between them:</p>
<p>
  <em>“Come to me.”</em>
</p>
<p>Strong as Edgar’s mind is, mesmerizing someone to do something they <em>already</em> want to do is far easier than convincing them to do something they rather wouldn’t. Edgar <em>wants</em> to press his cheek against Jonathan’s palm, so he does, and the relief he feels in so doing palpably lightens the air.</p>
<p>A satisfied hum emanates from the man in the chair, and Jonathan is suddenly overcome with a fondness so tender it’s hard to believe they barely knew each other, until recently.</p>
<p>“Jonathan,” Edgar mumbles, “are you quite alright?” His eyes flutter sleepily, and it puts a strange sort of ache in Jonathan’s chest. “This isn’t…”</p>
<p>Already the disorientation from the mesmer is receding, light filtering back into Edgar’s eyes, but the ache in Jonathan’s chest turns into a crushing weight when he realizes what Edgar was about to say.</p>
<p>
  <em>This isn’t like you.</em>
</p>
<p>And it isn’t. Edgar’s desire for physical intimacy has not been one that Jonathan spends much time worrying over. He puts up with his trailing fingers and the occasional innuendo because they are minimally bothersome and occasionally pleasant. It is with a sudden, painful twist near his heart that Jonathan realizes how unfairly he’s treated the man who has quite literally been paying him in blood.</p>
<p>He cocks his head, regarding Edgar where he sits with his cheek pressed against Jonathan’s palm. He’s quite handsome, Jonathan thinks; slightly built, well-groomed, intelligent and good-humored. All that, and he happily feeds Jonathan blood so sweet it borders on intoxicating.</p>
<p>Jonathan really has been a little unfair, he thinks.</p>
<p>In a show of impropriety so audacious Jonathan is a little surprised with himself, he perches on the edge of Edgar’s desk and leans forward, looming slightly as he draws Edgar’s face toward him. Edgar does not resist.</p>
<p>“Have I told you,” Jonathan purrs, “just how lovely your blood tastes?”</p>
<p>Edgar’s cheeks redden, and he comes close to letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “Er, well… I don’t know, Jonathan, it’s…” His eyes are bright, and for just a moment Jonathan again basks in the sweetness of Edgar’s curiosity.</p>
<p>“Does it really?” he murmurs, a soft look of wonder on his face. Edgar’s eyes are dark, a deep brown, and rather lovely now that Jonathan really looks at them.</p>
<p>“It does,” Jonathan says, pulling Edgar closer still, until there is too little space between their lips to be entirely proper.</p>
<p><em>Fuck propriety</em>, Jonathan thinks.</p>
<p>“Edgar, my dear –” ‘Man’? ‘Fellow’? They’re rather past all that, aren’t they? Edgar called Jonathan ‘boy,’ once, but never again.</p>
<p>It is during this moment of indecision that the flush burns brighter on Edgar’s cheeks, his dark eyes widen, and his lips part in a most inviting fashion.</p>
<p>A slow smile grows on Jonathan’s face. “My <em>dear</em>,” he says again, and with purpose.</p>
<p> “Yes,” Edgar sighs, a whisper of air against Jonathan’s lips.</p>
<p>When he guides Edgar’s mouth to his, slow and sweet, Edgar whimpers, and Jonathan can <em>taste </em>his desire as soon as he begins to lovingly plunder Edgar’s mouth. </p>
<p>He’s warm, welcoming and eager, and Jonathan finds himself wondering why he hasn’t done this sooner. This darling man, so beautifully enthralled and entirely <em>his</em>, has been telegraphing his willingness this entire time, and Jonathan has simply ignored it.</p>
<p>After a long moments spent enjoying the heat of Edgar’s mouth, Jonathan pulls back. Edgar chases his lips, eyes closed, brows knit together plaintively. Jonathan strokes his thumb over Edgar’s cheek until his human’s eyes flutter open, bright and hazy.</p>
<p>“Leave everything to me,” Jonathan commands tenderly. “I shall make enquiries, find out what’s happened with Mr. Hampton and report back to you by sunrise.”</p>
<p>He hears Edgar swallow with some difficulty. “Yes, of course. I’ll trust you to resolve that side of the situation. I will remain here, to…” he sighs, “… manage things.”</p>
<p>Jonathan presses their foreheads together. It’s not a gesture he’s in the habit of making, but it feels somehow like the <em>right</em> thing to do. “I’ll be needing my strength tonight, I fear.” When Jonathan smiles, Edgar’s eyes fall shamelessly to his lips. “Will you send me off with a token of your regard?”</p>
<p>At this Edgar frowns, draws back slightly. Jonathan at last relinquishes his delicate hold of Edgar’s cheek, straightening himself where he sits on the edge of the desk.</p>
<p>“You make it sound as if you’re going back to war,” Edgar scolds him toothlessly. “But if a little blood is all you require…”</p>
<p>Edgar stands, and Jonathan enthusiastically assists in divesting him of his white coat. Somehow, with their kiss, a line has been crossed, and in its crossing has Jonathan found a well of hunger he cannot (or, at least, chooses not to) suppress. He makes quick work of the buttons on Edgar’s waistcoat when he judges the slow seconds it is taking for Edgar to undo them himself to be unacceptable. His rough efforts to remove Edgar’s crisp shirt and soft blue tie are rewarded with small exclamations that devolve into darling whimpers as Jonathan works his lips and teeth down Edgar’s neck, leaving his shirt to hang open and useless from his arms in favor of acquainting himself with Edgar’s ardently willing flesh.</p>
<p>When Jonathan returns to Edgar’s mouth, it is with such gusto that he unintentionally snags Edgar’s bottom lip on one of his teeth. Edgar’s small cry of pained surprise blossoms beautifully into something low and needful when Jonathan begins to suck at the little wound. It’s a painful tease: the barest trickle of blood, so sweet Jonathan grows more convinced by the second that Edgar’s veins flow full of honey, rather than the dark, bitter stuff he draws from the necks of other humans.</p>
<p>When the nick has released all it has to give, Jonathan pulls back, hands finding their way to either side of Edgar’s face.</p>
<p>“Sweet,” he moans softly, helplessly. “Edgar, my dear creature, you taste so <em>sweet</em>.” He licks shamelessly at the quickly-mending cut before he musters the wherewithal to open his eyes – and he is certainly glad that he does, greeted as he is by Edgar’s dark eyes smoldering above a winsome flush, by the sheen of his swollen lips, and by the overwrought, breathless desire with which he is regarding Jonathan.</p>
<p>One of Edgar’s hands settles over Jonathan’s, on his cheek, while the other tentatively alights on Jonathan’s thigh.</p>
<p>“Well,” Edgar sighs, “I’m uncertain how many other willing humans you have on your dance card, but I’d say we’ve established at least anecdotal evidence for the singular nature of the… the r-relationship between… o-oh, dear –”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s hands occupy themselves in pressing against the small of Edgar’s back, drawing him in until they are chest-to-chest and Edgar’s hardening length is pressed to Jonathan’s thigh.</p>
<p>“Between an Ekon and a willing donor?” Jonathan growls.</p>
<p>Desperation is creeping into Edgar’s voice. “Jonathan, please – don’t keep me waiting.”</p>
<p>A low, dark sound erupts in the back of Jonathan’s throat, fed by the beast whose hunger only grows. It cries for flesh, for blood, for everything Edgar will give it – for everything Jonathan can <em>take</em>.</p>
<p>Jonathan manages to restrain it long enough to ask: “May I bite you, here?”</p>
<p>His lips feel Edgar’s throat working before he chokes out, “Someone might see, Jonathan.”</p>
<p>It’s a protest, but Edgar cannot conceal his desire – Jonathan can smell it on him the same way he can detect his enthusiasm or curiosity. It’s deep and strongly spiced, like a cider mulled warm with cinnamon and clove.</p>
<p>Flexing the fingers of one hand against Edgar’s back, and threading the other into Edgar’s hair, Jonathan purrs, “I’m not convinced you wouldn’t like that.”</p>
<p>Edgar’s breath catches. Jonathan’s vision narrows, darkens to reveal to him the beautiful map of Edgar’s circulatory system. There, with only a thin layer of skin between it and Jonathan, thumps that vein, delectably full, throbbing ever-quicker as Jonathan’s mouth opens and his fangs descend –</p>
<p>He stops, to the howling dismay of his beastly passenger. It is with great effort that he pulls back, squeezes his eyes shut until the blood fades back beneath Edgar’s skin, until he can look at Edgar’s face and see his eyes. They are filled with lust so brazen it makes Jonathan weak, but he steels himself</p>
<p>“Dear Lord,” he rasps, “you smell good enough to eat.”</p>
<p>Jonathan does not need to breathe, but he still gasps when Edgar presses himself impossibly nearer, circling his arms about Jonathan’s neck, shirt long since abandoned on the back of the chair.</p>
<p>Edgar leans forward and murmurs into Jonathan’s ear, “Then what are you waiting for?”</p>
<p>Edgar’s jugular is once again dangerously close to a pair of sharp, hungry fangs, and Jonathan grits his teeth. Edgar’s concern is a legitimate one; with the Guard sniffing around, a conspicuous bite mark on the administrator’s neck might just be enough to tip the Pembroke off-kilter from its “neutral territory” status. If Jonathan is to venture after Sean Hampton into the night, he cannot afford to be distracted by the possibility that Edgar might be in danger.</p>
<p>What’s more, ignoring clear hesitation in a partner – no matter how strongly qualified that hesitation may be, in a moment of passion – is a bridge too far for Jonathan.</p>
<p>He may not be a nice man, but he does try to be a halfway-decent one.</p>
<p>Deprived of its meal and frustrated in its hunt, the beast in Jonathan muscles past the brittle remnants of his self-control. His hand fists itself in Edgar’s hair and pulls, exposing the lovely column of his neck. His nocturnal lifestyle is beautifully betrayed by the pallor of the skin there – so pale as to give Jonathan a near-perfect view of every vein in his neck and chest.</p>
<p>“Do not tempt me,” Jonathan snarls, a little more sharply than he may have intended. “You know well enough by now I would happily swallow every drop of you, if only you could survive it.”</p>
<p>This does not have the effect Jonathan anticipates.</p>
<p>Edgar’s eyes <em>dance</em>, and he affects a scandalized tone. “Dr. <em>Reid</em>.”</p>
<p>Jonathan purses his lips. Of course. Of <em>course,</em> this is Edgar’s reaction.</p>
<p>Bereft of patience, awash in desires he didn’t know he had, and mindful of the time, Jonathan acts: his feet find the floor and he spins Edgar in place, leading him by the hand as he might a dance partner until his bare back is pressed against Jonathan’s front. Jonathan grips Edgar by his forearm with the arm he slings around his human’s endearingly soft waistline, while the other makes its way up Edgar’s chest, stopping only once he’s reached the front of Edgar’s throat.</p>
<p>Jonathan tilts Edgar’s neck, considers one last time giving in to the carnal greed that demands he sink his teeth into that throbbing, beautiful vein – and sinks them into Edgar’s shoulder, instead.</p>
<p>It’s bliss – of course it is. Every time he drinks from Edgar, it’s the same: an ecstatic clarity, perfect and tranquil. Blood sweeter than wine gushes into Jonathan’s mouth – as if Edgar’s very essence cannot help but rush to Jonathan’s waiting teeth. All at once the avaricious roar that goads him to rip and tear and drink is silenced – replaced with the satisfied hum of a mollified predator.</p>
<p>Edgar’s fingers are warm as they tangle in Jonathan’s hair, and the quiet noises he makes send gentle vibrations through Jonathan’s lips. So lost does he become in the warmth of his willing thrall that Jonathan does not realize he is growling into Edgar’s flesh until the man before him starts to produce answering sounds of his own.</p>
<p>The hunger tells him to <em>stay</em>, now, where minutes ago it had howled at him for refusing to leave. Everything seems so much less urgent, with Edgar pliant and warm beneath his hands, trapped by his mouth, clutching at Jonathan anywhere he can reach him.</p>
<p>It would be easy, the beast whispers, to stay – to stay here, forsake whatever goal had urged him out of the cozy confines of this lovely office, stay and sip from Edgar slowly – perhaps all night. He could do it, he’s sure, and Edgar would let him, needy thing that he is. But only if he could control himself – and for blood this sweet, for the rush of Edgar’s undeniable pleasure crashing across his tongue, Jonathan could. Oh, the <em>things</em> he could do with this creature, his darling pet, the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted –</p>
<p>Clear and quiet as a silver bell, Edgar’s sigh breaches the haze. “That’s enough for now, Jonathan.”</p>
<p><em>Of course it is,</em> the beast concedes, and Jonathan obediently retracts his lusting teeth. How intriguing, he muses, watching from inside himself as strange instincts guide his mouth and hands to gentler work:</p>
<p>The hand he used to bare the neck and shoulder of his dear friend devotes itself to lightly caressing all of Edgar’s skin it can reach, threading his fingers through the dark hair on his chest. The heart beneath hammers wildly, but steadily. Jonathan presses his palm flat against it and feels Edgar shudder on a slow breath.</p>
<p>There are some things that cannot be helped, and the hungry drag of Jonathan’s tongue over the marks on Edgar’s shoulder is one of them. <em>More, later,</em> he tells the part of him that howls and growls and hungers.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Jonathan whispers, ghosting his lips against Edgar’s neck. Edgar shudders in response and Jonathan grins, nosing into his shoulder mindlessly to kiss and nip and to bid a sad farewell to the punctures he’s made in Edgar’s shoulder.</p>
<p>For his part, Edgar slumps back against Jonathan with a low moan, a hand teasing the delicate hairs at Jonathan’s nape while the other grips the arm Jonathan has around his waist.</p>
<p>“No, not yet,” Edgar whines, so low Jonathan almost misses it.</p>
<p>Confusion reigns for only a moment - did Edgar himself not tell him to stop? - before Jonathan realizes what has happened: the scent of desire has thickened, deepened such that all Jonathan can smell are the heady spice of Edgar’s arousal and the aching, penetrating frustration that cuts through it all, that tells Jonathan exactly <em>how much</em> Edgar has enjoyed feeding him.</p>
<p>Jonathan cannot quiet the impulse to give comfort.</p>
<p>“Poor dear,” he coos, and Edgar <em>shivers</em>. Jonathan delicately guides Edgar to turn and face him, feels his grin turn feral at the sight: Edgar is flushed, earnest, and painfully, desperately aroused.</p>
<p>Edgar begins to speak, and his eyes stubbornly refuse to meet Jonathan’s. “Forgive me – I’m afraid I may have gotten a little carried away, just now.”</p>
<p>Jonathan dislikes this and makes it known to Edgar by kissing him with force. He begins to understand how dangerous this has the potential to become when he at last realizes that the sight of Edgar rosy with want speaks directly to his inner beast. There are significant implications, here – but Jonathan is again reminded of the time, and the reason for his needing to know it, when his eye lands on the face of the grandfather clock behind Edgar.</p>
<p>“There is nothing to apologize for,” Jonathan assures Edgar in low tones. “Rest assured that your… enthusiasm, is reciprocated.” He tips Edgar’s chin up with the knuckle of one finger. “It’s just that time is not on our side, tonight, and we have much to accomplish.”</p>
<p>Edgar looks almost as though he might cry, but he takes a fortifying breath and nods. “Of course, of course. Yes – I must see to the staff.” In moments he’s engaged in re-donning his shirt and waistcoat. To Jonathan’s lingering, proprietary gaze Edgar replies with a dismissive gesture.</p>
<p>“Off you pop, Jonathan,” he says with a smirk. “Rest assured that I and the hospital will be here when you return.”</p>
<p>With a lingering look and a last, chaste kiss to Edgar’s cheek, Jonathan sets out. Even if Sean Hampton is beyond saving, he thinks, at least he has one other good thing binding him to the earth.</p>
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